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Information on Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) methodology can be found in the Background Notes of the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2024.
This publication focuses on poverty and deprivation rates and self-perceived well-being indicators analysed by self-reported health status.
The annual SILC contains questions required for the Minimum European Health Module (MEHM). These questions allow for analysis of poverty status and self-reported well-being for respondents aged 16 years and older by:
(1) Self-perceived general health status
(2) Chronic morbidity status and
(3) Activity limitations (the presence of long-standing activity limitation due to health problems measured via the Global Activity Limitation Indicator (GALI).
The following MEHM questions were asked of SILC respondents aged 16 years and older:
Q. How would you describe your health in general? Is it…
Q. Do you have any long-standing illness or longstanding health problem? By long-standing I mean illnesses or health problems which have lasted, or are expected to last, for six months or more.
Q. Are you limited because of a health problem in activities people usually do? Would you say you are:
1. Severely limited
2. Limited but not severely
3. Not limited at all
Respondents who answered ‘Severely limited’ or ‘Limited but not severely’ were asked a further question
Q. Have you been limited for at least the past six months?
Respondents who were severely limited in usual activities for at least six months prior to their interview date are classified as ‘severely limited’, those limited but not severely for at least six months are classified as ‘limited but not severely’. Respondents who answered, ‘Not limited at all’, along with respondents limited for less than six months, are classified as ‘not limited’.
In this publication, a household’s ability to make ends meet, the financial burden of housing costs, and arrears on mortgage, rental and utility bill payments are analysed by the presence of a person in the SILC household with a long-standing activity limitation. The disability status of the household is attributed according to the person aged 16 years and older with the most severe level of activity limitations.
The household member who answered the SILC household questionnaire was asked the following question.
Q. Concerning your household’s total monthly or weekly income, with which degree of ease or difficulty is the household able to make ends meet?
In the case of a SILC household that was owned with a mortgage, the household member who answered the SILC household questionnaire was asked the following question.
Q. In the last 12 months, did it happen that you were unable to make a mortgage repayment for the mortgage(s) attached to this dwelling, due to financial difficulties?
In the case of a SILC household that was rented (excluding rent free households), the household member who answered the SILC household questionnaire was asked the following question.
Q. In the last 12 months, did it happen that the household was unable to pay rent on time, due to financial difficulties?
The answer options to these questions were
In the case of a SILC household that has to pay utility bills (there were a small number of households where rent payments covered utility costs), the household member who answered the SILC household questionnaire was asked the following question:
Q. In the last 12 months, did it happen that this household was unable to pay utility bills such as electricity, heating, refuse collection bills for this dwelling on time, due to financial difficulties?
The household member who answered the SILC household questionnaire was asked the following question:
Q. Please consider your total housing costs including mortgage/rent, insurance, utility bills and regular maintenance and repair costs. To what extent are these costs a financial burden to you?
This is the share of persons with an equivalised income below 60% of the national median income. The rate is calculated by ranking persons by equivalised income from smallest to largest and then extracting the median or middle value. Anyone with an equivalised income of less than 60% of the median is considered at risk of poverty at a 60% level.
Equivalence scales are used to calculate the equivalised household size in a household. Although there are numerous scales, we focus on the national scale in this release. The national scale attributes a weight of 1 to the first adult, 0.66 to each subsequent adult (aged 14+ living in the household) and 0.33 to each child aged less than 14. The weights for each household are then summed to calculate the equivalised household size.
Disposable household income is divided by the equivalised household size to calculate equivalised disposable income for each person, which essentially is an approximate measure of how much of the income can be attributed to each member of the household. This equivalised income is then applied to each member of the household. The income reference period of SILC in year T is the calendar year T-1, i.e. for SILC 2024 the income relates to Jan-Dec 2023.
Households that are excluded and marginalised from consuming goods and services which are considered the norm for other people in society, due to an inability to afford them, are considered to be deprived. The identification of the marginalised or deprived is currently achieved on the basis of a set of eleven basic deprivation indicators:
Individuals who experience two or more of the eleven listed items are considered to be experiencing enforced deprivation. This is the basis for calculating the deprivation rate.
The consistent poverty measure looks at those persons who are defined as being at risk of poverty and experiencing enforced deprivation (experiencing two or more types of deprivation).
An individual is defined as being in ‘consistent poverty’ if they are:
As part of the annual SILC respondents are asked how often they felt ‘downhearted or depressed’ or 'lonely' in the four weeks prior to their interview date. The responses are given on a 5-point scale, with answers ranging from ‘None of the time’ to ‘All of the time’.
As a result of only taking direct responses to the well-being indicator questions, the personal weights calculated as part of the core SILC survey had to be adjusted to account for attribute differences. This was achieved by adjusting the personal weights to account for non-direct response to the well-being questions. These adjusted weights were then calibrated to the estimated totals obtained by the core SILC survey to ensure consistency with the core SILC results. Due to high proxy interview rates for students and younger adults (aged 16 to 24 years) the achieved sample size of direct interviews for these groups negatively impacts on the robustness of their well-being estimates. Therefore, caution should be advised when interpreting well-being rates for these groups.
Well-being figures published on the Eurostat website may differ from results in this publication as there is no requirement to create separate weights for well-being indicators that are collected as part of the annual core SILC.
The Central Statistics Office wishes to thank the participating households for their co-operation in agreeing to take part in the SILC survey and for facilitating the collection of the relevant data.
For further information on this release:
E-mail ICW@CSO.ie
Paul Christopher (+353) 21 453 1441, or Gerard Reilly (+353) 21 453 5700
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